Data obtained by LA School Report show how each LA Unified high school’s scores on the state standardized tests improved or declined over the past two years. The district overall showed a 3 percentage point increase in math scores and a 6 percentage point increase in English language arts test scores. The improvements came along with increases...

For the second year in a row, LA Unified’s independent charter schools outperformed the district’s traditional schools on California’s standardized math and English language arts (ELA) tests, according to data released Monday by the California Charter Schools Association. The district’s magnets topped both.  The district’s independent charters saw 46 percent of its students meet or...

LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King said at a news conference last week that the district’s improvement over last year on the state’s standardized tests was among “the highest gains that were achieved among urban districts in California.” But was it really? LA Unified was fourth among the 10 largest districts in the state in overall improvement,...

LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer and other leaders called a press conference this morning at Eagle Rock Elementary School to tout the results of the newly released standardized test scores. Scores in the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) went...

LA Unified students increased their scores this year in the statewide standardized tests, but significant achievement gaps remain for African-American and Latino students, as well as for English learners and students from economically challenged backgrounds. The improvements came along with increases statewide in the second year of the new assessments, which are aligned with the Common Core...

Among all the subgroups of LA Unified students who took the state’s new Smarter Balanced standardized tests, English language-learners (ELL) produced especially disappointing results, finishing behind the state average for ELLs and near the bottom compared with the state’s 11 other large districts. LA Unified has the most English learners of any district in the...

By Joshua Leibner What do the most recent California Common Core test scores mean? This is a question that deserves real attention, but the initial response is not encouraging. My last LAUSD principal told us four years that we are just “going to have to accept the testing pill” and get on with the program that would...

There wasn’t a lot of good news for LA Unified in the Smarter Balanced test results, which show that the district performed well under the statewide average. Among the poor news was the continuation of a drastic achievement gap between the district’s white students and its black and Latino students. However, if there is one piece...

They’ve been talking about these new statewide tests in terms of setting a baseline for the years ahead. That’s fine as far it it goes. But here in LA Unified, we should think of the results in another way: As a redline. Statewide, more than half of students taking the test (56 percent) failed to meet...

* UPDATED This one is sure to spark some discussion around LA Unified water coolers tomorrow: Independent charter schools in the district scored almost even with traditional and affiliated charters on the new California Assessment of Student Progress and Performance (CAASPP) tests. The results of the new Common Core-aligned tests, which were released today, show that...